William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on what is thought to be April 23, 1564 to John

Shakespeare and Mary Arden, in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. He was the third of eight children By 1592 Shakespeare was a playwright in London By 1598 Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and appeared at the top of a list of actors in Every Man in His Humor written by Ben Jonson.

Soon after this, Shakespeare became an actor, writer and finally part-owner of a

playing company, known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men. The company took its name, like others of the period, from its aristocratic sponsor, in this case the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I, the new monarch adopted the company and it became known as the King's Men. After Shakespeare wrote his last two plays he retired to Stratford, where he died on April 23rd 1616 at the age of 52. He was survived by his two daughters Susanna and Judith. He was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Shakespeare writing style consisted of a metrical pattern that used lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, called blank verse. His plays were composed using blank verse, although there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and are composed of other forms of poetry. The Sonnets were written in iambic pentameter. A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter with a carefully patterned rhyme scheme.

Shakespear choose blank verse for his plays because he wanted to be different from the other authors of his time. Shakespeare's style of writing and meter choice were typical of his day, other writings of his time also influenced how he structured his compositions.

Eighteen of Shakespeare's plays are usually among the comedies: Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, Pericles, All's Well that End's Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida (sometimes classified as a tragedy), Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Two Noble Kinsmen.